Welp… Shu Sabi is the obvious mastermind.

Honestly, it really couldn’t have been anyone else. I was hoping it wasn’t her because it was so obvious that they might as well have titled the series “Help! Shu Sabi Is a Two-Faced, Curse-Wielding Villainess Who Set Up My Maiden Rival and Left Me for Dead.”

We have Sabi:

• Adopting Kougetsu
• Her learning forbidden magic from Kougetsu
• Planting the thought of “if only you were Reirin” in Kougetsu’s head
• Giving the Empress and Kougetsu those cursed incense gifts, with the latter delivered through Kin
• Her entire backstory
• Everyone else being either too useless, too inept, or too uninvolved to realistically pull this off
• And probably several other things I’m forgetting

Then we get the extra piece from Reirin: Sabi needed Reirin out of the way because she was preventing curse magic from working on the Kou clan. So by removing Reirin and putting Kougetsu in her place, Sabi effectively killed two birds with one stone.

Except… both Reirin and Kougetsu survived.

The other interesting piece is Kin stoking the flames of hatred while the Empress willingly made herself the target of that rage because she wanted Sabi to recover from the double-whammy of not becoming Empress and losing her child.

Except now that brilliant plan is starting to backfire spectacularly. Or maybe the Empress genuinely thinks she deserves it—or is willing to sacrifice herself for Sabi.

I’m still hoping there’s some kind of twist, especially given how important the body-swapping mechanic has been. But at this point, I think I have to agree with ReluctantlyZen: this anime just might not be that clever.

Which is a shame, because the premise is way more interesting than the mystery they’ve built around it.

This prince is so fucking useless. It’s your own mother who’s in peril. Shouldn’t you be the first one to step up and draw the bow?!

Yes! He’s so useless that it’s honestly surprising Reirin respected him at all. Like Reirin said, she gave him three chances, and he spurned every single one. She’s fucking done with him.

That said, curses aren’t exactly common knowledge. Even Reirin didn’t believe in them before the body swap. So from his perspective, her asking for the bow could easily sound like, “I need it for prayer,” or “I want to pretend I’m helping without actually doing anything productive.” In that context, refusing to hand over a priceless artifact isn’t completely unreasonable.

But yes, he should absolutely have done it himself, especially since it had apparently worked on Reirin just a day or two earlier. My dude, your mother is dying. Pick up the fucking bow. 😂

Also, now that I think about it, the maidens / princesses and the prince are half-siblings, aren’t they?

Well, Kougetsu is obviously adopted.

Why is Reirin the only one to call the crown prince nii-sama, but the maidens don’t?

Because this one is actually a fun Japanese-language quirk. The term Reirin uses is written お従兄様（おにいさま） — the kanji means “cousin,” but it’s specifically given the reading nii-sama, i.e. “dear older brother.”

So Reirin is essentially calling him “older brother” while the written word says “cousin.” The other maidens would presumably use the normal itoko-sama (従兄様) instead.

I’m definitely not a Japanese expert, though, so take that last bit with a grain of salt. 😅

The poop scene was a little much for me personally, but I love how we got to see more of the sister and mother. Also, no idea why I love Yani Sato so much when she’s an absolute trainwreck all the time. I mean, she wears crocs–absolutely irredeemable–and yet I just want to give her headpats and cigarettes.

The Exiled Heavy Knight anime discussion is basically all about how much of a trainwreck the pacing is. I basically read the manga just to see how the story is supposed to go, because the anime would spend 22 minutes on one-and-a-half chapters. That’s DBZ Frieza saga levels of pacing.

I will say, light novels are usually better than their anime counterparts as well. I should compare light novels to manga adaptations though.

The crazy thing is that if you took out the 3D establishing shot fly-bys, this episode is practically shot-for-shot what’s in the manga and went at a reasonable pace. I was joking that there was more plot in the first 2 minutes than in the entire last episode. But yes, we’re going to get Exiled Heavy Knight Kai and it’s going to be so much better.

I dislike the trope where the hero goes into the guild and everybody learns too much about them because their conversation with the receptionist is overheard by everybody.

I always see that as shorthand for the rumor mill. Sure, it would be more realistic if people gradually put the pieces together:

“Hey, that Level 50 dungeon bounty isn’t available anymore…”

“Wait, those two just got promoted to D-rank…”

“Hold on, they just sold a MASSIVE crystal…”

But actually showing everyone independently connecting those dots would slow the story to a crawl, so I don’t mind the shortcut.

Also, from the end of the last episode, Ruche is already seeing stars when Elymas casually tells her they made 60 million from the dungeon. So when she later hears “10 million,” her reaction is basically: “Oh. Just a little more, I guess? Big numbers go brrrr.”

And speaking of easy and cliched writing, Malice is suddenly obsessed with Elymas?

Yeah, I agree that the anime really drops the ball here. Even the manga doesn’t handle it particularly well, but the anime gives you such a tiny glimpse of Malice’s motivations that she mostly just comes across as completely insane for no reason.

Then again, the head of the family disowning his own son and immediately taking Malice in practically on the spot at the class ceremony wasn’t exactly a decision overflowing with logic to begin with.

My understanding is that Malice came from a branch family and became obsessed with Elymas because he represented everything she wanted to be. Then, even after he gets disowned, she hears that he’s making a name for himself as an adventurer and suddenly develops this overwhelming need to prove she’s better than him… for reasons.

Honestly, it feels a little like the author went: “Okay, he’s been disowned, but now he’s just a newbie adventurer. We need some kind of ongoing consequence for the banishment… How about a weird obsessive rivalry? Yes, perfect!”

But again, this episode had a part that I really enjoyed, which was the negotiation with the shop owner.

Yes! I loved that scene. It really feels like the point where Ruche starts becoming her own character instead of just reacting to whatever Elymas does.

And it’s even better because all three characters actually behave like reasonable people. You don’t have Malice being malicious simply because the author apparently looked at her name and went, “Well, I guess I have to commit to the bit.” And you don’t have Ruche’s old party being absurdly oblivious about basic things like drop rates just so they have an excuse to treat her like garbage.

Everyone has understandable motivations, everyone negotiates, and Ruche gets to demonstrate that she’s learning and growing.

And that’s what makes this series so weird to me. It genuinely has moments where I’m like: “Wow, that’s actually really good writing.”

Immediately followed by: “…What the actual fuck is going on?”

Okay, did they change studios all of a sudden? I mean, they still did the really long 3D establishing shots, but aside from that, this whole episode moved at a reasonable pace. Was it because there were no action shots this episode so they just moved along with the dialog instead of milking the 3D perspective change craziness for 20 minutes straight?

On a story-related note, this is one of the moments where I really start to love Ruche as a character. She’s almost too sweet for this world, but the way she freaks out over everything Elymas does as well as her innocent sensibilities is something I really enjoy. Considering the ED tried to sexualize her, I like golden-retriever-Ruche a lot more.

And another pretty cool thing is that a Pierrot and a Heavy Knight are such an incredibly unusual combination that it becomes super iconic for the series. Fantasy stories are full of swordsmen, mages, clerics, and rogues but Exiled Heavy Knight gives us a tank and a clown and I appreciate it.

Yeah, I’m honestly shocked it was Shu Gabi because she was the all-too-obvious choice. But by the end of last episode, I was sitting there thinking, “Okay, if it isn’t her, then who the hell could it possibly be?”

• Anyone from the Kou clan is almost completely off my suspect list. Both Reirin and the Empress were targeted, and Tousetsu himself was in the dark until recently.
• The Kin Consort seems too inept and the Kin maiden too just to be doing anything this elaborate. The whole “Kin white lady directing Leelee” thing was a fake, too. And we’ve now seen curse magic connected to both the Kin and Shu gifts given to Reirin and the Empress.
• The Blue Consort (sorry, I forget the clan name) feels similarly inept, and the Blue maiden is so young and seemingly innocent that she doesn’t exactly scream “mastermind behind a palace conspiracy.”

And then there’s Shu Gabi. The suspect who was so obvious that I basically convinced myself she couldn’t possibly be guilty.

She took in Kougetsu after Kougetsu learned forbidden magic following her parents’ suspicious “suicide.” She planted the seed of, “If only you were like Reirin.” Kougetsu then taught her curse magic. And despite Reirin’s frailty being widely known, Kougetsu was genuinely surprised to discover just how sickly she was, suggesting that information had been deliberately kept from her. Gabi also seemingly has a grudge against the Empress for taking the position that could have been hers. And, of course, it was Gabi’s gift to the Empress that caused her to become sick. Oh, and then there’s the extremely obvious foot curse, presumably connected to Venomcraft.

Like… COME ON. It’s a neon sign pointing directly at her. But that’s exactly why I don’t buy it.

If it really was Shu Gabi, what’s her actual motive? Revenge against the Empress for taking the top maiden position? In the process, she’s burning down both the Shu and Kou clans. That’s an absurd amount of collateral damage.

So let’s assume she’s a red herring, like many of us have been expecting. If that’s the case, then a few things suddenly become interesting:

• Gabi asked to learn forbidden magic because she needed to counter someone else’s forbidden magic. In doing so, her own leg became cursed.
• In the flashback, when the prince—now the Emperor—became ill, that could potentially have been Venomcraft as well.
• We know maidens sometimes gave gifts to other maidens to present to the prince as their own. Gabi gives the Empress the handkerchief to present to the prince, but the Empress keeps it instead. So the cursed Kin and Shu gifts given to Reirin and the Empress could potentially have originated with a third party.
• Forbidden magic can apparently facilitate body-swapping and silencing. It’s entirely possible that someone else has been swapped or silenced.

So in this hypothetical scenario, the Kou clan remains the victim, while both Shu and Kin have been framed.

And that leaves one clan that has come out of this whole thing remarkably clean: The Blue clan.

And honestly? The Blue maiden being so young, sweet, and seemingly completely innocent would make for one hell of a twist. The motive would also be comparatively straightforward: eliminate the top rival—Reirin—and arrange for all the blame to fall on Kougetsu.

I still maintain that the titular “Inept Villainess” is actually Kougetsu.

And I love that Kougetsu and Reirin are finally starting to understand each other. Kougetsu spent her whole life desperately wanting what she thought Reirin had, while Reirin is basically considering every day a gift from Kougetsu.

Which is why I’m increasingly convinced there’s way more going on here than “Shu Gabi is evil.”

I think the thing that bothers me the most about this anime is the way that Elymas seems to be unable to use his common sense or any knowledge that he gained from living in that world for his entire life

I don’t know if it’s because I recently read the manga just to see how badly the anime adaptation was trainwrecking the pacing, but the impression I got was that the world’s “common sense” about the game mechanics is often absurdly wrong.

Heavy Knights are considered a useless class when they’re actually completely busted, for example. So Elymas seems perfectly capable of navigating the non-game aspects of the world using the knowledge he gained growing up as a noble. But when it comes to classes, skills, and game mechanics, he trusts his past-life knowledge instead. Because the people of this world clearly have no idea how to properly optimize any of it.

And now he’s finally starting to realize, “Oh, wait, I’m not necessarily the only person who can be good at this.” Honestly, that’s pretty refreshing.

lol, I looked it up too. I was SHOCKED when I finished Volume 2 and realized I was basically caught up to the anime.

There’s an ABSURD amount of recap, flashbacks to something that happened literally three minutes ago, long reaction shots, dramatic camera angles, and reused animation that feels like it’s there purely to eat runtime.

And I genuinely have no idea why they’re going at such a glacial pace. They signed up for 26 episodes and have 18 volumes of manga to work with. It’s not like they’re in danger of running out of source material!

At this rate, they might only reach Volume 8 by Episode 26. 😂

Yes! Kougetsu was making it so obvious that she wasn’t Reirin. That being said, body swap magic is forbidden and likely not well known so it’s forgivable that the handmaiden didn’t realize it sooner. Plus Keigetsu told lies to make Reirin more trapped, like how she “stole” the non-existent diary.

And yes, it is funny that all this has taken place over the course of just a week. Those must be some extremely fast growing potatoes. Agriculture aside, the rest of the timeline makes sense, and really sends home Keigetsu’s plight of not even being able to maintain the charade.

As for the mystery, I think it’s clear that Keigetsu knows who the real culprit is. I had a theory from last week that the real titular “Inept Villainess” is Keigetsu because all her schemes so far have only make Reirin happy. But it’s also pretty clear that there’s someone else pulling strings from the shadows, setting Keigetsu up to learn forbidden magic, killing her parents, hiding Reirin’s illness from her, and making her envious of Reirin.

I thought maybe it was someone from the Kou clan, but that seems extremely unlikely after this episode. The Shu Consort seems to be the obvious pick, even moreso after this episode. She “saved” Keigetsu, asked her why she couldn’t be more like Reirin, and now we find out that she was favored to be the Empress until Kou claimed it in the final hour AND the incense she gives the Emperess is cursed too. I mean, the evidence seems overwhelming against her, especially with the last bit. BUT… she seems like the too obvious choice.

Remember, both the Kin AND Shu incense gifts were cursed, but Keigetsu said there’s only one other forbidden magic user. Now there might be a third, extra secret magic user but I doubt it. Moreover, the Empresses’ flashback showed that it wasn’t uncommon for one maiden to give another maiden a gift to give someone on their behalf, as she was given the handkerchief to pass off as her own gift.

So I think someone is giving the consorts these incense jars to use as gifts. I mean, the Kin consort seems to be an idiot, and the Kin maiden seems to be a fair person. But there was that one girl from the Kin clan who gave the hair ornament to Leelee who the Kin maiden said she didn’t recognize as one of the white robes, so that’s suspicious as hell.

Also, I really like where your mind is going with this other dark magic user. Someone who can swap bodies to extend their life or otherwise do mischievous deeds without getting caught. Keigetsu is barely tapping into that power.

Yeah, I was wondering that myself. I feel like it’s a post bodyswap gift, because Keigetsu knows it’s from the Kin clan. If it was pre-bodyswap then she probably wouldn’t have known where it came from. But I see your train of thought… maybe Reirin sickness is because of a curse and not a weak constitution. So on that note, maybe the Kin clan has been constantly giving Reirin these “gifts”.

If you like the show, the LN is even better.

Right? Sometimes there’s decent animation and the they do weird stuff to show the pacing to crawl and reuse shots. I might pick up the manga just out of curiosity.

This episode was considerably better than last week’s but still. I’m right there with you, watching because it’s such a mess and yet somewhere at the studio one intern seems to be trying SO HARD.

This whole episode was gold from start to finish.

Land of the Lustrous. Hear me out. I absolutely loved the anime. So much so that I was like “I need MOAR!” and then binged the manga. Without giving anything away, the complete story ruined me for several days afterwards. Don’t get me wrong, it was BRILLIANT but it was also like “fuck…” Like, have you ever seen Requiem for a Dream? Where you go “wow, that was fantastic… and I never want to watch it again.” Except I love Phos and would absolutely spend time with her again and then question my sanity afterwards.

In a similar vein, Planetarian. It gets you right in the feels but is also fantastic. It plays fair and you’re left going “yeah, there isn’t any other way they could have ended, is there?” while you’re bawling your eyes out.

Ah yes. She first talks to the flames first, and then from the books learns it’s forbidden magic. My interpretation was “oh, here are books that explain the thing I was learning on my own” and considering that Keigetsu gets proficient enough at it to body swap and contact Reirin at will, I just assumed her dad’s books were more of the “Black Magic for Dummies” variety. But it’s totally possible the notes were “Earth/Fire/Water/Air magic = good. Black magic = bad.” and she learned everything on her own.

This last episode was particularly bad. I thought the first episode was decent from an animation standpoint. Just the fact they were trying to use unusual camera angles and the action sequences seemed decent enough. But omfg the plot is bad and the pacing is terrible. Seriously, this last episode felt like it could’ve been condensed into 3 minutes, so the rest of the episode they were just wasting everyone’s time.

Oh, what an interesting idea. This is the first episode where I’ve really started to go “huh… things aren’t adding up.” Like sure, there were a few minor oddities before but this one practically had neon “LOOK HERE” signs. However, if I had to point the finger at anyone, it would be someone from the Kou clan. Shu doesn’t seem to have a good motive. But if it was Kou, their motive could be to get Reirin a healthy body.

Your “it was murder” take is actually solid. The mother’s abusive attitude doesn’t give me “suicide” vibes, and a double-suicide seems even less likely. Adding to the “staged” nature of the parents’ deaths, it’s kind of interesting that Keigetsu just happened to be locked in a room with books about forbidden magic. I don’t think those are the kind of things you’d just find in the back room of a commoner’s house.

The other big red flag I saw this episode was the incense in sick Shu Keigetsu’s room. Keigetsu was too sick to light it herself, it was there before the empress and prince arrived, and it clearly had some kind of dark aura about it. It also broke when Reirin reached out to Keigetsu after hitting the bullseye. The only people who could have had access to Keigetsu’s room are people of the Kou clan.

Also how they keep portraying Keigetsu as a tragic character, with Reirin constantly trying to help her and actually happy they traded places because she can be healthy for once. Really makes me think that the titular “Inept Villainess” is actually Keigetsu.

Some stuff that hasn’t been mentioned yet:

Girls Band Cry. I found the cast really solid, realistic, and relatable.

Land of the Lustrous. Predominantly female world and Phos is a surprisingly deep and relatable character who undergoes a lot of growth.

Isekai Wildcard Picks:

Ascendence of a Bookworm

So I’m a Spider, So What?!

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

The Executioner and Her Way of Life

My Next Life As A Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom

The Saints Magic Power is Omnipotent

Didn’t I Say To Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!